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To start a construction project in Costa Rica, a developer has to spend about a year getting approvals from some 30 separate entities by presenting some 107 documents, according to the minister to the Presidencia.

Rodrigo Arias, the minister and the brother of the president, called this situation a tragedy Tuesday as he issued emergency orders to speed up the process.

“Why are we inviting foreign investments to come to make big projects of tourism and hotels if we take years to process permissions,” he asked.

A big problem, he said is the Secretaría Técnica Nacional Ambiental, the agency in the environmental ministry that approves impact  statements for projects. The agency has neither sufficient personnel nor the resources, he said.

Minister Arias said an emergency decree has been issued to set up a committee to study the Secretaría Técnica and report within 15 days what can be done.

He said the problem was basically budgetary.

Among the ideas that have been proposed to make the agency more streamlined is to provide an extraordinary budget as well as divert funds from agencies that depend on the Secretaría Técnica and to ask those presenting plans for approval to pay the cost of the study.

Minister Arias made the statements as he met with representatives of the construction industry Tuesday at Casa Presidencial.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Costa Rica News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.